Today we will talk about the matter that how rice is cultivated or the cultivation process of rice. We almost every Indian eat rice directly or indirectly daily. But we don't know that how this highly demanded food is cultivated in the fields. So today we will know everything about this matter. Many among us may know something about it like rice comes from paddy. This means firstly we get the paddy and then after a little process, we get rice.
What is rice?
Rice is a cereal grain and is almost eaten by everyone. It is produced from a grass plant. Roughly half of this world's population eat rice every day. Maybe directly or indirectly. Almost everyone in South Asia depends on rice as a daily staple food. For this reason, the number of the total weight of rice production in India is really large and India is the Second Leader in rice production. According to the report of The Food Consumption 2013 India had produced 130.8 metric tons of rice. Rice is the most popular food, especially in India. West Bengal is the largest producer of rice in India. Almost 5.46 million cultivable areas of West Bengal are under rice production. So as a result west Bengal produces the largest number of rice every year. The quantity is 15 to 16 million tons per year. The second-largest rice producer in India is Uttarpradesh. This state produces almost 12.4 million tons of rice every year. China is the largest rice producer in the world. China produced 148.5 million metric tons of rice in 2018 - 19. India is the second-largest rice producer in the world. India produces 116.42 million metric tons in 2018 -2019.
How rice is cultivated | Cultivation process of rice:
The cultivation process of paddy or rice is a very long-term process and also farmers give their best to produce the highest quality rice. There are many steps. We will discuss every part. The first part of cultivating rice is to choose the right cultivable land. According to modern science loamy soil is best for rice cultivation. Because loamy soil is the most fertile soil ever. So for that reason, farmers always try to start cultivation in loamy land. Most of this land is seen on the river plains especially in Gangetic plains. Because loamy soil is mostly made of Gravel, sand, and river silt. For that reason, it is mostly gotten beside rivers. The next step of rice cultivation is Plowing the land. Plowing is the most important part of rice cultivation. Because in short words plowing takes the lower-level fertile soil up and upper-level unfertile soil down. It also increases the furtiveness of cultivable land. Now we can see powerful tractors are doing this but in the old times, the only way to plow a field is manual plowing. After doing this the next step is to apply custom fertilizer. Custom fertilizers increase the fertility of a cultivable land more and more. Now you can realize how important is the fertility of cultivable land.
Now farmers are using chemical fertilizers to increase the fertility of land too much at a time. This process is indirectly ruining the soil. Because if a particular chemical fertilizer is applied many times to a particular land to increase its fertility then firstly the fertility of the land is decreased and also that particular fertilizer does not work anymore on that land in the future. And after reaching this situation, the land is totally at a big risk that it would not be able to cultivate any plants in future. But farmers neither understand nor realize this matter.
After completion of these 3 processes, farmers make some area or their cultivable land muddy plant the seeds. It is not the last and final planting. Firstly farmers must need small seedlings to plant them finally on the cultivable land. To get those, they have to do this process. The area that they made muddy is called seedbed.
After this, the farmers have to wait for 1 to 1.5 months because the seeds are needed some time to be converted into a seedling.
After the seeds are grown the farmers have to replant those seedlings to the land for finally. They have to do it very carefully because if in this stage any mistake happens then all the seedlings will die and with them, all the efforts of the previous three months will be ruined. Then finally all those seedlings have to be replanted on the main fertile cultivable land manually. Farmers still use their hands to plant these seedlings to produce paddy. After some days replanting these seedlings, the base of the tree is being scratched a bit with a special tool which is called Niren.
After a few days of scratching the base, the fertilizer is applied again, and also in this stage of cultivation, a special type of insect locusts are attracted by the half-ready paddy. A locust can eat two grams of plants every day. These can totally damage a whole paddy plant. For that reason, in this stage, many types of pesticides are used to kill these dangerous insects.
After this now the trees need more and more water. To do that many small drainages are made from the small canals to the cultivable lands. Now nothing more. Only waiting for the ripe rice.
Now, at last, time to cut the paddies from the main plants.
So in this article, we have discussed all How rice is cultivated | Cultivation process of rice.
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